ETHICS

When I was a kid I never questioned anything of what my mom told me. Whenever she said something was “right” or  “wrong” I trusted and believed her utterly because after all I thought how could my mom ever be wrong. Lets just say since then things have changed. The one thing I’ll always appreciate though, is how she always stressed the difference between doing what is most commonly regarded as “the right and good thing to do” and what is most commonly regarded as “ the bad or wrong action to take”. She always emphasized never to lie, cheat, steal, and to avoid harming others at all costs. I always grew up with the golden rule “Do what you would want others to do to you”. My mom taught me never to lie; yet she never told me the gray areas of this rule. As a result, this caused me to tell people exactly what I thought of them and to what degree even when it was not particularly favorable. I remember a particular situation where my mom and I went to a meeting with my third grade teacher and she asked me how I was liking the class. Well, lets just say I didn’t have anything nice to say. My mom punished me soon after saying that I could not talk so bluntly to my teacher and tell her that I hated the class and critiqued her teaching skills but rather I should try to focus on the positive points she had. Nevertheless, she understood that I had not gotten that sugarcoating and lying were not the same thing and that sometimes it is better to say something nice or not say anything at all. The idea of personal beliefs and opinions again caused me trouble in fifth grade when I was in swimming class and the teacher was showing all of us how to dive. However, as a result of my mom constantly telling me all these stories of how people had dived into pools and broken their neck, or become paraplegic or suffered some sort of accident I refused to dive, causing my teacher to find me disrespectful and sending me to the principles office. My mom came in and talked to him about why she believed that kids shouldn’t dive into pools and as a result they agreed to disagree. Through these experiences and others, I have learned that although people may not agree with your beliefs, morals, ethics, etc it is key for people to be able to respect different perspectives.  I learned also through several awkward encounters that it is essential also to stay away from taboo topics such as sex, religion, politics, and instead keep to neutral topics like the weather. Ultimately I believe that as long as people have a generally similar idea of what is right and what is wrong (i.e,not kill others, hurt others, or to not steal) and instead try to respect other peoples culture, religion, family beliefs everyone should be able to respect and live harmoniously together, because after all no two people are exactly alike.